[From BoingBoing]
"Steal This Film is a spectacular documentary on Sweden's piracy movement -- The Pirate Bay BitTorrent site, The Pirate Bureau think-tank and The Pirate Party, a political party. Steal This Film ingeniously combines Hollywood footage, scare-interviews with Hollywood execs, Hollywood anti-piracy PSAs and footage of interviews with Swedish pirates, politicians and people on the street.
The author of the BoingBoing post was really interested to hear how deep a chord the MPAA-ordered police raid on The Pirate Bay's Swedish servers struck in the heart of Swedes, who quite rightly view threats of trade sanctions and US corporate intervention in their national laws as a serious incursion on their national self-determination.
It's a kind of macrocosm for the way that industry customers feel when they find themselves frustrated by DRM: I bought this DVD, I own it, I want to use it in my house in the way that I want. Who is Hollywood to take away my autonomy and impose their policies on me from a distance?"
STEAL THIS FILM

Thursday. Spoon River - (no. 3) Nicholas Bindle. I was very pleased with it and so was T who went as far as calling it "excellent, clear and totally understood" (ah, shucks! - hey, there's going to be enough bad news in my career so I'm recording every good notice I get). 13 in class, mostly good and most of them work. One or two on the other hand, I believe are wasting their time, money and energy... oh, and they're kidding themselves by not rehearsing outside of class and by 'phoning in' their work. A couple of them still get the same notes they've been getting for months now and I think they're close to getting booted. The funny thing is that they'll still be head and shoulders above most other 'actors' in L.A. who don't even do anything approaching what they do! Rehearsing next week with two questions into the SR.
J is leaving class to 'work on other things'. Real shame, I've worked with him since beginning class and he's grown so much. A couple of us had it out with him after class. Turns out he's been going to class 4 times a week which is great if you have the time but he doesn't and he's seeing all the other things he wants to do in the industry and the time he doesn't have to do them. The simple thing would be to cut classes to two a week and make the time for the other things. You HAVE to train regularly but keep some balance in your life. Blimey, 4 times a week?! Yes, you can overkill your training too! The thing about training is that if you're not doing it, you will lose your 'edge' very very quickly and the most important things to realise is that there's no plateau, you won't stay at the level you've reached, you'll get worse almost immediately. Sounds daft? Nope, no so. Imagine you are a triathlete (I said, 'imagine'!), super fit and working out at the gym every day BUT then decided to sit on a sofa, immobile, for 8 hours a day in front of the TV without any exercise. How long would it take for your muscles to weaken and the fat to pile on. Pretty quickly, yet? Lose your rather marvelous figure, yes! Absolutely right!
Actively training actor MINUS the training = out of shape actor.
If you want to call yourself and actor AND be taken seriously, regardless of what else you have going on in your life or what else you're doing, you MUST be training regularly AND at a good school, not with a dilettante who studied under someone who studied under someone who once wrote a book on acting, sometime long ago. There's a few of those around too!
Anyhoo, I have an audition tomorrow for a well-known cable company, Cc. Still no feedback on the USPS callback. Heyho, that's par for the course.
The monkey is really flexing his personality, uncontrolled rage and slammed doors. Holy mackerel - you can almost see the growing pains popping out of his eyeballs! Poor fellah. We're putting our hard hats on and riding the storm out - it's going to be a long one!

Hey, poor old Pluto, demoted to a 'dwarf planet'. What will all the school kids do? Every single reference source - books, websites, charts, astronomers' brains, ALL of them out-of-date, overnight. Blimey, that's a biggie, innit!
Chatted to a chap who's producing a Halloween show at one of the SoCal (Southern California) theme parks for the next two months who's going to audition me for a rock act and 'presenter' for a send-up of a popular reality show... more info as it happens!!
Really really need to work on the short with Y who is getting more preggers by the minute! She wants to film next month and we still don't have it even half down! She tells me that she has a lot of material in her head which just need noting down and she's also starting nailing down locations. She's a hard worker, our Y! I have no doubt we'll get it done!

Wednesday = rehearsal day...
Went over to K's for the first rehearsal of our new scene. It is going to be an absolute bastard! A million moments to hit and some intense writing. Talk about a workout! It's also insanely long, around 25-30 minutes!
K, Ye & I cranked out our SRs and discussed them at length exploring nuances, reasons for certain words and, basically, what the hell we thought they meant!
Spent the rest of the afternoon with monkey and a mate of his who had come 'round for a playdate.

Your hot and tasty menu of links for today (fresh from the grill)...

An ingenious disposable PDA (yes, it's a piece of paper but, wow, it's clever!). I made mine straight away and it's in my back pocket now. Make yours here.

This guy's short films have to be seen to be believed. He uses stop-motion animation and the results are pretty amazing.

Here's an ingenious way to view the news. Sort of, erm, organic, I suppose. Here's the Blighty edition! It's also a great way to see, at a glance, the different news focus in different countries.

And now, a weapon to use against your friends and mine, Telemarketers! Called 'The EGBG Counterscript', it caters for receptive and non-receptive callers at the other end of the 'phone. I suppose I should go easy on them as most of the thespians in L.A. have had to do this at one time or another!

It's OK, the rocks are friendly!

Tuesday was a catch up day on the 'to-do' list. Emailing, sending stuff out, clearing up, one of those days. Plus some reading, of course, Spoon River and Pillowman.
Fun and games in the garden too. The munchkin and I ended up labeling everything. Doesn't cost much, a stick of chalk! Oh, did I mention we had a pool? How about that gate, eh? I'm glad we labeled those rocks. And please check out the monkey's first 'unassisted' smiley'! I know, that's what I said, "Very impressive".

News links...

Ciao Mr Cruise...

Tom Cruise and Paramount part company

Another report of the same story.

Monday. Class first thing. Only eight in the class! Yep, things thin out a bit when you get to advanced. Too much work and you have to get serious. Fancy that, eh? Hum, strange concept to expect people to pay you to act even though you don't think you have to work at it. Yes, it's very strange but most 'actors' in L.A. think they can just do that. PLEASE, if you're not going to work at this, don't come to L.A. There are too many people to wade through as it is and they are just 'noise' interfering with the rest of us. You will be very disappointed when you're not a star within 6 months and you'll go home, broken. Honest. I've been here over two years and only now is my network starting to pay out and believe me, it's still far from easy. Way way far from easy. Eight more years in my 10 year plan. Sorry, am I preaching? Didn't mean to! Anyway... worked with S with the same relationship and imaginary circumstances as last week. Slightly different dynamic but we weren't pleased with it so we're going to do it again next week, only this time, I suggested we email each other expressing our opinions, our point-of-view and everything else as if we were 'really' in the relationship facing what we would in our imaginary circumstances. Should be an interesting email dialogue this week!
Met with my manager and her colleague in the afternoon and I chatted through his angle of what we all wanted to achieve with our association. He definitely seems as switched on as M and I think all three of us working at this, things should start to move on pretty quickly. His network seems to span some very interesting areas, not least of which, the very small family of L.A. v/o agents and CDs. Watch this space.

Ha ha, this is fun. Make your own signs, book covers etc. etc here.

Sunday = even more downtime in L.A. Played with the munchkin for most of the day. Ahhh. Trawled through IMDBpro for Atlanta Talent agencies for my forthcoming targeted campaign to find an agent there, hopefully taking full advantage of the 4D Coke film opening with the New World of Coke in May 2007. Seems there's only three main ones...

Found something very funny while I was 'in' IMDB...(I quote):

"What is a Bacon Number?

Perhaps you have heard of the "Kevin Bacon Game", a.k.a. "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon". This is based on the theory of "Six Degrees of Separation" which states that everyone in the world can be connected by six or less people (i.e. Bob knows Jim, Jim knows Anne, Anne knows Steve, therefore Bob can be connected to Steve through Jim and Anne, even though Bob and Steve have never met).

The "Kevin Bacon Game" is based on a similar theory, tracing actors' connections to Kevin Bacon based on actors with whom they have appeared in films. It does not require them to share screen time, just to be in the same movie. The "Bacon Number" is based on how many films it takes to connect someone to Kevin Bacon. For example, Kevin Pollak was in A Few Good Men with Kevin Bacon, giving him a Bacon Number of 1. Jeanne Tripplehorn was not in a movie with Kevin Bacon, but has appeared with Pollak in Steal This Movie, meaning it takes two films to connect her (Steal This Movie and A Few Good Men), giving her a Bacon number of 2.

There may be multiple ways to connect someone to Kevin Bacon at the same level (i.e. Jeanne has been in movies with other people who have Bacon Numbers of 1, such as with Christian Slater in Very Bad Things and with Kevin Costner in Waterworld), but we only display one of the possible connections.

So, let's have a little search then...

Completely unknown Brit actors, such as yours truly have a Bacon number of 2:
James xxxxxx was in An American Crime (2007) with Ari Graynor...
... who was in Mystic River (2003) with Kevin Bacon.

Even relatively unknown Brit actors come up trumps...

Christian Coulson was in The Hours (2002) with Ed Harris...
... who was in Apollo 13 (1995) with Kevin Bacon.

Michael Legge was in Angela's Ashes (1999) with Marcia DeBonis...
... who was in Picture Perfect (1997) with Kevin Bacon.

Ross Kemp was in Playing Away (1987) with Charles Pemberton...
... who was in The Four Feathers (2002) with Djimon Hounsou...
... who was in Beauty Shop (2005) with Kevin Bacon.

Gary Mavers was in Fighting for Gemma (1993) with David Threlfall...
... who was in The Russia House (1990) with J.T. Walsh...
... who was in The Big Picture (1989) with Kevin Bacon.

James Nesbitt was in Resurrection Man (1998) with Stuart Townsend...
... who was in Trapped (2002) with Kevin Bacon.

Robert Lindsay was in Fierce Creatures (1997) with John Cleese...
... who was in The Big Picture (1989) with Kevin Bacon.

Diana Weston was in Bert Rigby, You're a Fool (1989) with Bruno Kirby...
... who was in Sleepers (1996) with Kevin Bacon.

Denholm Elliott was in A Private Function (1984) with Jim Carter...
... who was in Balto (1995) with Kevin Bacon.

This is fun, isn't it!

Let's try some Hollywood heavyweights...
Mel Gibson was in Pocahontas (1995) with Jim Cummings...
... who was in Balto (1995) with Kevin Bacon.

Keira Knightley was in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) with Natsuko Ohama...
... who was in Flatliners (1990) with Kevin Bacon.

James Marsters was in Shadow Puppets (2006) with Richard Whiten...
... who was in The Island (2005) with Jamie McBride...
... who was in Beauty Shop (2005) with Kevin Bacon.

Johnny Depp was in Arizona Dream (1993) with Polly Noonan...
... who was in Novocaine (2001) with Kevin Bacon.

Will Ferrell was in Elf (2003) with Edward Asner...
... who was in JFK (1991) with Kevin Bacon.

Bacon number of 1:

Sarah Michelle Gellar was in The Air I Breathe (2006) with Kevin Bacon.

Tom Cruise was in A Few Good Men (1992) with Kevin Bacon.

And of course, only one person has a Bacon Number of 0:

Kevin Bacon is Kevin Bacon!

Still need more Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon? You can find the official Wikipedia entry here. Enjoy, you mad fools!

Saturday = downtime in LA.
Up early so grabbed 40 winks late in the morning. Munchkin made cookies for his schoolmates (who he's seeing later on) and Mum & Dad got to wander around the LACMA which is free after 5pm courtesy of Tar-jay.
Hum.. quite a fine museum/gallery folks, well worth a visit (if you're in LA of course). On show today is a fine selection from a photo exhibition of the most recent Curator of the museum. 100 sets of photo-booth photos, a digitally airbrushed face (spooky) and a portrait of a young girl, 'avec moustache' which I'm sure she's REALLY pleased about.
Read 'The Pillowman' again - definitely going to be mynext scene in class.